Mark Z. Jacobson

Mark Z. Jacobson is Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment and of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He develops and applies computer models to understand air pollution, global warming, and renewable energy resources. He has published two textbooks and 140 peer-reviewed journal articles. He served on an advisory committee to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, appeared in a TED talk in 2010, co-founded The Solutions Project in 2011, and appeared on the David Letterman Show in 2013 to discuss converting the world and U.S. to clean energy.

He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering, an A.B. in Economics, and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford in 1988. He received an M.S. and PhD in Atmospheric Sciences in 1991 and 1994, respectively, from UCLA and started on the faculty at Stanford in 1994. He received the 2005 American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Award and the 2013 American Geophysical Union Ascent Award for his work on black carbon climate impacts and the 2013 Global Green Policy Design Award for developing state and country energy plans.

Outside of Science: In his spare time, Mark likes to play tennis, run, and spend time with his kids.